Website appears to show manifesto of Charleston shooting suspect

A website has surfaced with a racist manifesto and a series of photographs that appear to show Dylann Roof, the suspect in Wednesday's Charleston church massacre, posing with a handgun and standing in front of a Confederate military museum and a plantation house.

Reuters could not immediately confirm who created the website or the authenticity of the photographs posted on it.

Roof, a 21-year old white man, was arrested on Thursday and charged with the murders of nine African-Americans at the Emanuel African Methodist Church in downtown Charleston. Authorities say he spent an hour in Bible study with parishioners at the historically black church before opening fire on them on Wednesday evening.

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Charleston SC shooting suspect. Dylann Roof

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Website appears to show manifesto of Charleston shooting suspect

Photos found on a website that allegedly belongs to church shooting suspect Dylann Roof.

Photos found on a website that allegedly belongs to church shooting suspect Dylann Roof.

Photos found on a website that allegedly belongs to church shooting suspect Dylann Roof.

Photos found on a website that allegedly belongs to church shooting suspect Dylann Roof.

Photos found on a website that allegedly belongs to church shooting suspect Dylann Roof.

Photos found on a website that allegedly belongs to church shooting suspect Dylann Roof.

Photos found on a website that allegedly belongs to church shooting suspect Dylann Roof.

Photos found on a website that allegedly belongs to church shooting suspect Dylann Roof.

Photos found on a website that allegedly belongs to church shooting suspect Dylann Roof.

Photos found on a website that allegedly belongs to church shooting suspect Dylann Roof.

Photos found on a website that allegedly belongs to church shooting suspect Dylann Roof.

This image has been provided by the Charleston Police Department, Thursday, June 18, 2015. A man opened fire during a prayer meeting inside a historic black church in downtown Charleston, S.C., Wednesday night, June 17, 2015, killing nine people, including the pastor in an assault that authorities are calling a hate crime. The shooter remained at large Thursday. (Photo via Charleston Police Department)

The Emanuel AME Church is viewed behind a police vehicle on June 18, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina, after a mass shooting at the Church on the evening of June 17, 2015. US police on Thursday arrested a 21-year-old white gunman suspected of killing nine people at a prayer meeting in one of the nation's oldest black churches in Charleston, an attack being probed as a hate crime. The shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in the southeastern US city was one of the worst attacks on a place of worship in the country in recent years, and comes at a time of lingering racial tensions. AFP PHOTO/BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

A police officer holds up a tape in front of the Emanuel AME Church June 18, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina, after a mass shooting at the church on the evening of June 17, 2015. US police on Thursday arrested a 21-year-old white gunman suspected of killing nine people at a prayer meeting in one of the nation's oldest black churches in Charleston, an attack being probed as a hate crime. The shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in the southeastern US city was one of the worst attacks on a place of worship in the country in recent years, and comes at a time of lingering racial tensions. AFP PHOTO/BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

A view ofthe Emanuel AME Church is seen June 18, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina, after a mass shooting at the church on the evening of June 17, 2015. US police on Thursday arrested a 21-year-old white gunman suspected of killing nine people at a prayer meeting in one of the nation's oldest black churches in Charleston, an attack being probed as a hate crime. The shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in the southeastern US city was one of the worst attacks on a place of worship in the country in recent years, and comes at a time of lingering racial tensions. AFP PHOTO/BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

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"We are told to accept what is happening to us because of ancestors wrong doing, but it is all based on historical lies, exaggerations and myths," the author writes in the text of the site.

The author provides a cryptic "explanation," for action, saying, "I have no choice ... I chose Charleston because it is most historic city in my state, and at one time had the highest ratio of blacks to Whites in the country.

The website surfaced as mourners arrived in Charleston from around the United States on Saturday to pay their respects to the nine people killed in the attack. Services were planned throughout the day ahead of a rally in South Carolina's state capital, Columbia, later in the evening.

Charleston was an important port city during the American Civil War in the 1860's, pitting the breakaway Confederate states against the Union Army under the control of the U.S. federal government.

The main issue dividing the country was slavery, with the rebel Southern states of the Confederacy insisting on their right to decide for themselves whether to allow a practice that was seen as vital to their plantation economy.

CROWDS GATHER OUTSIDE CHURCH

Crowds began to gather at the Emanuel African Methodist Church early on Saturday. At the memorial site in front of the church, the oldest African-American congregation in the southern United States, flowers were laid six feet (two meters) deep in places.

Placards and signs offered words of solace and prayer but also frustration at another act of gun violence.

A black T-shirt hung on the church gate had white lettering that read: "Do you believe us now? Change must come."

Monte Talmadge, a 63-year-old U.S. Navy veteran, drove nearly 300 miles (480 km) overnight from Raleigh, North Carolina, and sat in a camping chair across the street from the church.

"There was an overwhelming feeling that made me drive here," he said. "A church is a place of worship, not a place for killing. Our society has reached a place of total deprecation."

The bloodshed in Charleston is the latest in a series of fatal mass shootings in the United States. The violence has renewed a national debate between advocates of tighter controls on gun possession and supporters of unfettered access to firearms, which they assert is constitutionally protected under the Second Amendment.

Residents from across the Charleston area were expected to gather in the early evening on the Ravanel Bridge, one of Charleston's main thoroughfares, connecting the city with Mount Pleasant across the Cooper River. Local organizers hoped some 3,000 people would join hands along the bridge's footpath.

A march was also planned for Saturday evening, starting at Wragg Square and ending at the Emanuel AME church a few blocks away. Participants were encouraged to bring flowers to lay at the church, according to a flyer headed "March for Black Lives".

The first demonstration since the shooting was scheduled for 6 p.m. in Columbia. Activists were calling for the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the state house because of what some people see as its racist associations.